Welcome to my world

[Strangelove]

I don't even know where to begin...

I've seemingly got everything going for me...but I still feel shitty most of the time.

I just recently moved in with my girlfriend who I've been dating since November. We went to school together but didn't really talk. I had a thing for her back then, and she supposedly did for me too. Let this be a lesson to you guys...if you're interested...LET HER KNOW! I feel like I missed out on a lot of time with her, but I'm glad I didn't miss out on everything.

She's never been with a guy this long, and she's the first woman I've felt strongly enough to have sex with, sex isn't just sex for me, it has to mean something, but I'm no where near her first. It didn't bother me in the beginning...I knew she wasn't a virgin, but I wasn't in love with her in the beginning either. I care about her so much, but sometimes I feel like she goes out of her way to remind me of her ex's. Like she feels she has to make me jealous to stay interested in her. Like how every time she goes to the bar with her friends she lists off all the guys there she knew, and lets me know how the dirty old men were staring at her, and last week, the night we moved in, I stayed at home and unpacked things and arranged the furniture while she went out to the bar with her friends. She told me the next day how her friend mike was drunk and high and was "fondling and groping" her. I mean really, what was she thinking telling me this? That's the first time I really felt a little anger towards her, not because it happened (that just brung on a little heartache) but because she threw it in my face that it happened. I'm afraid the more she does this the less I can look at her like I used to.

Constant reminders...we were shopping for some clothes the other day at a thrift shop and she came across a shirt advertising mcphee.com. She bought it of course, in fact she's wearing it today. Gotta love that. She wouldn't admit to why she was buying a generic shirt advertising some website that probably doesn't exist anymore, but I'm not an idiot. "It's so me," she said. Mcphee is the last name of one of her ex's. She still refers to him as her best friend, though they're really not close as far as I can tell. They had a long distance relationship and she ended things. She told me it was because she didn't feel anything for him, but she also said how she hated long distance relationships, so I wonder if that was really the reason or at least a contributing factor. She hasn't seen him since she ended things, and who knows what she'll feel when she does. She wants him to come visit this summer. I made no mystery about how that won't be a picnic for me no matter what she feels or doesn't feel for him. She doesn't understand. But it feels more like she's not interested in understanding. She just says "It's Stewart!" or "It's Mike!" (guy at the bar) like that's supposed to mean something to me. They're strangers to me.

Thinking about her being with her ex's intimately just kills me. I've told her how it makes me feel, and she stopped talking about them for awhile (more or less), but that really only left me to think about the details myself, so I eventually initiated some open discussion about them, and I felt a lot better for it. Still...sometimes I think I'd have been better off to have given myself sexually to someone I didn't care about, as I don't think I'd feel so strongly about this if I had.

Anyhow the problem now is more so emotionally. It bugs me how she just throws the L word around. Yeah, that'd be "love." She's used that term with a lot of her ex's...and I know she's regretted ending things with one or maybe two of them for sure. I have a hard time believing she's really been in love with many of them (knowing a lot of them personally, and knowing them to be assholes)...and it kinda makes me think her definition of love is vastly different than mine. I don't think love comes around every 3 months. I went 21 years without feeling it once.

It'd be great if she could just listen to how I feel instead of getting mad at me for caring about her. I probably sound really jealous of her reading this, and I suppose I am, but I try to keep it to myself and let myself deal with it. I'd never try to control her, tell her who or where she could and couldn't see or go. I know that would drive her away, as I've been driven away from past relationships by the same thing. Still, I can't help but be distant with her sometimes when I am dealing with it. She thinks I'm mad or "cranky" as she puts it most of the time, but I'm really not. Just depressed.

I just feel so open and exposed to being hurt by her it's overwhelming sometimes. I wonder if she really knows what she wants.

As a side note, as jealous of her as I may sound, she's just as bad if not worse with me. I can't talk to girls on the internet without her sitting right there reading along. My best friend's girlfriend thinks I'm cute...and she hates her for it. I'm not interested in the least (it's my BEST FRIEND'S girlfriend after all), I want to keep what I have. I'm not looking for anything else. I tell her all the time and go out of my way not to mention other girls hitting on me or anything like that. I don't want to make her feel the way she makes me feel. I wonder why she does it to me.

What am I asking? I have no idea. But any comments would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

[misombra]

well it sounds like she's giving you a lot of reason to be jealous. that's shitty of her to throw things in your face like. i'd be pissed too. if my boyfriend was going out getting groped by other women i'd flip out! i guess the real thing here is trust. do you trust her?

[LightOn]

StrangeLove,

Question. Did you have these feelings of jealousy before or after she started giving you grief about the women who think you are cute?

[Strangelove]

well it sounds like she's giving you a lot of reason to be jealous. that's shitty of her to throw things in your face like. i'd be pissed too. if my boyfriend was going out getting groped by other women i'd flip out! i guess the real thing here is trust. do you trust her?

I didn't for the longest time because of what I heard from her past relationships. Not because she cheated, but because she seemed really fickle about things...ending the good ones much sooner than the bad ones most of the time.

[Strangelove]

StrangeLove,

Question. Did you have these feelings of jealousy before or after she started giving you grief about the women who think you are cute?

Before...soon as I felt like I was falling in love.

The good news, we had a very open expression of how we felt for each other last night, and she more than convinced me I had nothing to worry about. Everything I was feeling this time yesterday is gone. Hopefully for good.